


Functional

by Black_Crystal_Dragon



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Family, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Step-parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-21
Updated: 2009-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Crystal_Dragon/pseuds/Black_Crystal_Dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winona and Frank were never abusive or neglectful; James T. Kirk was just a kid who made life difficult from day one …</p><p>(Set during and just after the timeline of <i>Star Trek XI</i>, the first reboot movie. Character study based on Frank, the stepdad.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Functional

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ and written for the st_xi_kink meme, based on a couple of prompts that asked for portrayals of Winona's second husband (Frank) as a decent guy. To me (not having read the movie adaptation, or been aware of the deleted scenes), The Stepdad seemed like a reasonable sort of guy with a Kid From Hell on his hands, not the often-alcoholic abuser he was portrayed as in 99% of fic at the time of writing. This is my favourite of my own _Star Trek_ fics to date.
> 
> Many, many thanks to my amazing beta on this, LJ user mycapeisplaid, without whom half of this fic wouldn’t exist (and what there was would suck).
> 
> Imported to AO3 in August 2016.

Frank had calmed down considerably since the call from the police. They had told him that his stepson was being taken to hospital before he was charged. Frank couldn’t remember the crimes; when they had listed them, his mind had still been reeling from the shock of _drove the car over the edge of a quarry_ and the relief of _absolutely fine, just needs a dermal regenerator run over his hands_. Even now, his hands were trembling as he waited for Winona to pick up the connection.

A few moments later, she answered his call. She was wearing her gold uniform and her hair was pinned up, telling him quite clearly that he had called her away from her duties, but a glance at the background told him she was in her quarters, not on the bridge. For that he was thankful; upsetting Winona in private was one thing, but he couldn’t do it in front of her crew. He tried a weak smile. “Hey.”

“Frank,” she smiled, but it only lasted a moment. She knew he only called her when there was some kind of emergency, and his agitation probably showed on his face. “What’s wrong?”

Frank let out a long, slow breath, shaking his head. He took another to speak, but she cut him off before he could begin.

“It’s Jim, isn’t it? What’s he done this time?”

Frank didn’t need to ask how she knew. Ninety percent of the time, Jim was at the root of emergencies in their household. He nodded. Winona folded her arms, her lips pursing and the lines on her forehead – mostly Jim’s fault in the first place – deepening in annoyance and worry.

“He’s been arrested,” Frank told her. Sugar-coating the news wouldn’t make it any better, even if he was reluctant to be to blunt. Her eyebrows shot up and he saw her draw in an angry breath, but he continued before she could speak. “And taken to the hospital.”

Winona deflated immediately. “The hospital? What –?”

“He’s fine,” Frank told her calmly, holding up both hands as he tried to reassure her. “It’s nothing serious. There’s nothing to worry about, he just scraped his hands pulling another of his stupid stunts. He’ll be fixed by the time I pick him up.”

“What did he do now?” Winona asked in a tight voice, the anger returning to her expression now that she knew that her son wasn’t in immediate danger. Frank rubbed at his face with one hand.

“He took the corvette, broke the speed limit, then totalled it while trying to lose the cop who told him to pull over.”

“He totalled the corvette?” Winona sounded about as terrified as he had felt when the policewoman had told him that the car was now a heap of useless scrap metal.

“Jim’s fine,” he reminded her gently. “The car’s a mess, but he got out in time.”

For a moment, he considered telling her just how bad the accident had been – if it was an accident, and Frank doubted that – and just how far the car had fallen before it smashed on the rocks below. Then he looked at her worry lines and felt guilty about deepening them further. He remained silent; for a while, so did Winona.

“Tell him,” she said eventually, her voice slightly shaky, “That I am going to tan his hide when I get home.”

“Yeah,” Frank replied. He would do no such thing, partly because neither of them would ever actually hit one of the kids, and partly because he had learned by now that Jim didn’t listen to threats of his mother’s wrath anyway.

Frank heard the front door open and close behind him and glanced over his shoulder in time to see Sam set down his bag with a thunk. The boy saw his mother on the screen and waved half-heartedly. Frank turned back to look at her.

“Sam’s home – I’d better go. We need to pick up Jim,” he said. Winona nodded to him, then smiled and blew Sam a kiss.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she promised both of them. Then she looked at Frank again and murmured, “Don’t forget to tell him –”

“I won’t,” Frank lied, giving her a smile. “’Bye.”

The screen went black. Frank got to his feet and hurried towards the door, hustling Sam along in front of him. “Come on, we’ve got to get to the hospital.”

“I saw him on the way home. With the car,” Sam said quietly as they headed towards Frank’s other, far newer car. “Is he OK?”

“Yeah,” Frank replied as he pulled open his door and climbed in. Sam followed suit. As he started the engine, Frank shot him a small smile and said, “I’ll get pizza on the way back, or something. All right?”

“Mm,” was Sam’s only reply. Frank sighed and pulled away from his parking spot, wondering which was worse: Sam’s passive-aggressive almost-hatred or Jim’s outright rebellion.

~

Jim was sitting on a hospital bed when they arrived, his eyes downcast. A rather burly female police officer was sitting in the chair beside the bed, not attempting conversation, while a nurse ran a dermal regenerator over his palms. When Frank burst through the curtains, the nurse jumped and took a step back and the policewoman rose to her feet. “Sir –”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Frank burst out, completely ignoring everyone in the curtained-off area in favour of yelling at Jim. “You could have been killed!”

Jim didn’t look up, but Frank saw his fingers clench into fists, hiding the still-visible damage done to his palms. He knew without needing to see that Jim was scowling under his bangs. “Knew what I was doing.”

“Not according to what I heard!” Frank snapped, not yelling anymore because there was no point. The policewoman placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, I must ask that you –”

“He’s my son,” Frank said without thinking. Jim’s reaction was instantaneous. He let out a feral yell and launched himself off the bed towards Frank, his fists coming up in front of him to hammer into every part of his stepfather he could reach.

“You – are – not – my – father –!” he howled, punctuating each word with a punch or a kick. The policewoman tried to haul Jim backwards, but a swift and vicious kick to the shins made her cry out and fall back, leaving Frank to deal with his kid on his own.

Frank made a grab for one of Jim’s pinwheeling fists, but even when his fingers closed around his wrist the boy somehow twisted and wrenched himself free. He heard Sam shouting at his brother to stop, but his cries fell on deaf ears; Jim was too angry to listen and making so much noise with his own wordless screaming that he probably couldn’t hear. He tried again to grab Jim’s wrists, but this time when he caught him Jim hauled downwards with all his strength then struck out wildly towards his face.

The blow was heavy, for a small and wiry child, and landed high on his cheek. He didn’t let go of Jim, but stood up and pulled his arm up above his head. Suddenly, he was aware of a nurse advancing with a hypospray in hand. In his moment of distraction, Jim struck again. This time, he grabbed Frank’s other hand and bit deeply into the flesh between thumb and forefinger, hard enough to draw blood. Frank yelled in pain, and the nurse lunged.

The hypospray deployed into Jim’s neck and he immediately went limp. Frank caught him automatically, then lifted him up and carried him across to the bed before setting him down as carefully as he could. Ignoring his bleeding hand, he turned to the nurse. “What did you give him?”

“Just a mild sedative to calm him down,” she replied soothingly. “No need to be alarmed.”

“He might be allergic – he’s got more allergies than –”

“No, sir. We checked out his medical history. He’ll be fine,” she continued, leading him over to the seat and sitting him down before taking up the dermal regenerator once again. This time, however, she took hold of Frank’s hand and pointed the instrument at the ring of red where Jim’s teeth had sunk in.

“I’m fine,” Frank insisted, trying to pull his hand out of her strong grip. “Why was Jim brought in?” When the nurse hesitated, he sighed and said, “Look, I may not be his biological father, but I am his _step_ father. Please. Why did he need treatment?”

“Jim was brought in needing treatment for severe abrasions to his palms.”

She finished running the dermal regenerator over Frank’s hand then stood and went over to the bed, uncurling Jim’s fingers to show his hand. Frank looked; even after application of the dermal regenerator, the skin was still red and looked sore. He hissed in sympathy.

“He should be fine within the next half hour,” the nurse continued. “Then we’ll check him out, back into police custody.”

As if on cue, the policewoman stepped forwards again. “Sir, are you the legal guardian of James T. Kirk?”

“Yes,” Frank replied, slightly irritated by the constant need to reaffirm this simple fact. “His mother’s job often takes her off-world. I was named legal guardian to Jim and Sam after we were married.”

“I see,” the woman said. She paused, then went across the hall and brought a chair back, sitting down opposite Frank. “I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

“OK,” Frank sighed, sending an apologetic glance in Sam’s direction. The boy shrugged, expressionless, then turned and walked off along the corridor. For a moment, Frank thought about calling him back – then he wondered if there was any point. He sighed and focused on the cop in front of him.

***

When Winona got back to Earth, she hadn’t forgotten The Car Incident. No one had; it had developed initial capital letters in all of their minds. Jim had been grounded indefinitely – Winona, through the telescreen, had used the phrase ‘for the rest of your natural life, young man!’ and obviously meant it – although in actuality the sentence made little difference to his life. Frank could drive him to and from school and stop him from attending after school clubs or seeing his friends, but he could hardly lock all the doors and windows and keep him a literal prisoner, so it was all too easy for Jim to sneak out. To Frank’s knowledge – and Jim’s credit – he never left the farm and spent his stolen time outside alone, which was technically permissible, but his blatant disregard for the rules was hardly a good thing.

The first thing Winona did when she walked through the front door was to hug the three men in her life: first Jim and Sam together, then Frank. Then, after the customary questions about the trip and a glass of home-made lemonade – her favourite – she had decided to go out to look at the garden and took Jim with her.

Winona walked around the garden inspecting the flowers for a while, her bare feet making no sound at all against the grass. In her absence, the boys were charged with looking after her garden; according to Frank, it was the one chore they both completed without a word of complaint. Winona smiled at the thought of her sons out here, picking weeds out from the borders, breathing in the fresh air.

She came to a halt in the corner of the garden where the tree she had planted to commemorate George stood. It was always the best tended area when she came home, often with new plants blossoming around its base as if to draw her attention to the tree and remind her of the husband she had lost. She sighed and placed a hand against the trunk, silently asking George for help on this one.

When she turned around, she found Jim leaning against the wall of the house beside the front door with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, scuffing the toes of his boots. He was watching her from under his bangs. She beckoned to him, taking a seat on the bench under George’s tree, and when he walked over she patted the wooden seat, indicating for Jim to join her. Reluctantly, he sat beside her; she placed her arm around his shoulder.

“You know why I bought you out here?” she asked, looking around at the flowers and back towards the house.

“Yeah.”

Jim’s voice was small and sulky, but not exactly repentant. She sighed deeply. She was no longer angry, exactly, but she had seen the photographs of the car at the bottom of the gorge, and she knew how close a call it had been. She needed to know why he seemed to like brushing up against death, and how she could stop it. “Why did you do it, Jimmy?”

Beneath her arm, Jim’s bony shoulders shrugged. Winona sighed again, this time more deeply.

“Frank isn’t a bad man,” she reminded him, looking down at her son. From the dejected hunch of his shoulders, she suspected that he knew that, too, even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The truth was that Frank wasn’t George Kirk – and no man, however good or noble or brave, could replace the father Jim had never known. She took a deep breath and decided to tackle the problem head-on. George would have approved, she thought; he had always done so, right to the very end. “I know that biologically he isn’t your father –”

“No,” Jim growled with a ferocity that she hadn’t been expecting. She drew back a little, trying to see more of his face. Jim’s hands had scrunched into fists on his lap. “He’s _not_ my dad.”

“Frank has been here for you. He took the training wheels off your bike; he watches you play baseball for school and he goes to every single parent-teacher conference. He’s put band-aids on your scraped knees; he’s taken you to the hospital more times than I can count, and looked after you when you got out,” she said quietly. There was more to the mental list, but she left it at that; it was enough, for the moment. “You put him through hell every day, and he sticks around –”

“That doesn’t make him my dad!” Jim shouted angrily, rising quickly to his feet and whirling around to face her. “My father is –”

“Dead, Jim,” Winona told him. Her voice was quiet, but there was enough force in it to stop Jim in his tracks. She got up from the bench herself and crouched down so that she was on his level, taking hold of his shoulders. “Your father – George Kirk – is dead, and he has never been here to be a dad to you. Frank has.”

Jim wrenched himself out of her grip and ran, throwing open the gate and taking off down the road. Winona jogged to the gate to watch him go, but didn’t shout for him to stop. He would come home when he was ready, when he had cooled off. After a moment, she sighed and closed the gate, turning her back on his retreating figure and walking back to the house.

***

They managed to keep him another two years before Jim ran away from home for good. He went without saying goodbye while Winona was off-planet, leaving Frank alone in the house and a note on the refrigerator that read, ‘So long – J.’

He at least had the decency to call Winona so she wouldn’t worry about him, and for that Frank was grateful. She told him later that Jim had gone to his brother’s place, and had asked him to drive across the breadth of Iowa to drag him home. Frank refused.

It wasn’t that he’d finally had enough of Jim, which was the accusation Winona immediately levelled at him. He tried to think of Jim and Sam as his own, no matter how difficult they made it for him. No, he refused because he knew Jim would only resent him all the more for bringing him home, and run away all over again.

Instead, he mailed a key to their house to Sam’s address, along with a note that read, ‘Just in case – F.’

***

It had been ten years since then. Frank spoke to Sam over the telescreen; he called Winona fairly often when she was at home, and when Frank answered he didn’t object to trading awkward pleasantries for a while. They even saw one another occasionally, when Sam came to visit his mother, although their meetings were only brief and perfunctory. Frank was glad that he and Sam were at least civil with one another, for Winona’s sake as much as his own; it wasn’t the best relationship, nor the one he would have hoped for, but it was a vast improvement on his relationship with Jim, who he didn’t speak to at all.

Jim didn’t cut himself off totally, to be fair. He didn’t mind speaking to Winona, but she had to be the one to make the call. Winona never said as much, but Frank knew that it was in case he picked up. Jim clearly wanted nothing more to do with him.

Winona related Jim’s news to him anyway, without being asked: a string of minimum-wage jobs with no future; various arrests and hospitalizations for drunk and disorderly behaviour; no relationships – or at least, none he wanted to tell his mother about. Frank knew that she sweetened the truth, but he let her; the softened version of Jim’s life that she fed him was often bad enough, and Jim was her son. She didn’t want him thinking any worse of the boy than he already did.

Then, out of the blue three years ago, he had called. Frank had been out at the time, which was probably lucky considering. He had come home to find Winona sitting at the kitchen table, frowning to herself over the fact that Jim had joined Starfleet.

It wasn’t a surprise that he had managed to garner a place – they both knew that Jim had the brains to get into the academy easily, and do well once he was there – but rather that he had chosen to do so. After twenty-two years of shouting refusals at the pair of them whenever they so much as suggested that he think about it, joining Starfleet was the last thing they expected.

They had spent the past three years pretending that they weren’t waiting for him to drop out.

Frank almost wished that their dim view of him had proved to be correct, and that Jim had given up on Starfleet. If he had, Winona would not be beside herself with anxiety because her son might be dead.

The academy had lost more than an entire year of students in one blow, and Starfleet was refusing to divulge any information. Even Winona’s status as a respected officer, albeit one retired from active duty, gained them no ground. Along with everyone else whose child or loved one had been in training, they got nothing more than a recorded message when they tried calling the Academy or Starfleet Command. Jim wasn’t answering, either, despite the numerous messages Winona left him.

“I wish they’d tell us something.”

Frank turned from the telescreen – he had been trying to contact Starfleet again, fruitlessly – to face Sam. He had travelled across three states as soon as news of the disaster had been broadcast, and had been sitting in the living room with Winona for the past three hours looking drawn and frightened. For once, there had been no awkwardness when he came and joined them.

“Yeah,” Frank said quietly. It saddened him to think that it took a tragedy of this magnitude to bring them together as a family. He took a deep breath. “Jim’ll be OK.”

“All but one ship got shot down,” Sam told him with a shake of his head; as if Frank didn’t already know. “The chances that Jim was on that one ship …”

“I know,” Frank replied, a little more sharply than he really meant; Winona was only in the next room, and he didn’t want her thinking like that. “But talking like that will only upset your mother.”

“Mom knows the odds,” Sam said heatedly, almost like a reproach. Frank reached out and took hold of Sam’s shoulders, and counted it a success when he didn’t pull away.

“There’s no need to remind her of them.”

Sam shrugged his hands off and turned away, stalking back into the living room. Frank sighed and turned to face the telescreen again. It wouldn’t hurt to try to contact Starfleet again, and the recorded message sometimes changed to give more information. He had just tapped in the code when he heard a noise behind him: footsteps on the front porch, then a knock at the door.

Frank felt his heart jump into his mouth. It wasn’t feasible to tell every family in person that their child had been killed, he knew that – but it was plausible that they would personally inform some, especially those who were involved in Starfleet themselves. From the living room, as if she were thinking the same thing, he heard Winona murmur, “Oh, God.”

He went to the door and took a deep breath before he pushed open the door.

It took Frank a moment to recognise the young man at the door as Jim: older than he remembered, of course, and battered as if from a recent beating, but very much alive. Frank just stared at him; his first impulse was to reach out to touch Jim, make sure that he was really there, but he stopped himself. He knew that Jim almost certainly wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Hey, Frank,” Jim said quietly when the silence stretched a little too long. “Can I …?”

Frank stepped back from the doorway, silently letting Jim into the house. He glanced around as he came inside, probably looking for things that were different and things that were the same. Finally, Frank gave in and touched Jim’s arm, a simple brush of his fingers that made the young man turn sharply to face him. He swallowed hard; for all that he looked surprised by the touch, Jim hadn’t flinched from it or shrugged him off.

“We were worried,” he told him gently, “When you didn’t answer your Mom’s calls …”

“I’ve been busy,” Jim said, shrugging dismissively. “Is Mom here?”

“I’m here,” Winona said. Attracted by the sound of voices, she had come to stand in the kitchen door and was staring at Jim as if she might burst into tears. Sam was hovering behind her, relief painted across his face. There was a moment of silence as they all stared at one another, then Winona stepped forwards and spread her arms. Jim stepped willingly into the embrace, holding his mother tightly as her shoulders shook.

“I’m OK, Mom, you don’t have to cry,” he muttered, sounding embarrassed and guilty both at once. Winona released him and held him tightly at arm’s length; her eyes were wet with the tears she had refused to shed earlier.

“Yes, I do,” she insisted, blinking furiously. “I thought I’d lost you. What happened?”

When Jim tried to put off his explanation with the excuse that it was a long story, Winona turned him about and marched him into the living room so that they could make themselves comfortable. Jim looked tired, but he sat down between his mother and Sam on the sofa without further complaint.

Frank hovered in the doorway, uncertain, until Jim started speaking without trying to make him leave first. Then he went over to an armchair as inconspicuously as he could and sat down to listen.

By the time Jim finished explaining to them how and why Vulcan had been destroyed, and how they has stopped the ship – the _Narada_ , the same ship that had destroyed the _Kelvin_ – from dealing the same fate to Earth, Winona was clutching her youngest son’s hand in both of her own as if she was never going to let go. Frank thought he might have done the same, if he wasn’t afraid Jim might snatch his hand back.

“As soon as we landed and I was checked out by medical, I came here,” Jim finished, glancing around at his brother and stepfather before focusing on Winona. “I know you’d be worried.”

“You could have called,” she said quietly, although the reproach had no bite to it. She was glad he had come in person, Frank could see that plainly. He knew that they had seen each other occasionally in San Francisco, during Jim’s time at the academy, but those meetings had been brief because they were both busy.

“Yeah, well,” Jim replied with a shrug, resolutely not apologising for his behaviour. No change there, Frank thought, smiling to himself. Jim looked up and made sure that Frank caught his eye before he too smiled.

~

They put both Jim and Sam up overnight. Their old rooms hadn’t been kept just as they have left them: Sam had come to pick up his stuff as soon as he had a place big enough to accommodate it, and Winona wasn’t too sentimental to put Jim’s things in boxes, even if she couldn’t bring herself to relegate them to the attic. Both rooms still held their beds, however, although Jim had to squeeze past boxes of possessions he had abandoned ten years ago to reach his.

The next morning, Jim stayed in bed until half past eleven and missed three calls from Starfleet, all of which Winona fielded for him. She knew from their tone that they wanted her to wake him up. Then again, she also knew that they would most likely tell him to be on the next transport to San Francisco, and she had seen the dark circles around her son’s eyes the night before: he had been exhausted physically and emotionally by the time he went to bed, and she wasn’t about to disturb his rest for anyone.

When he finally stumbled downstairs – wearing yesterday’s clothes and his chin bristly with stubble, but as rested as could be expected – she put a stack of pancakes down in front of him and didn’t tell him about his missed calls until he had finished.

She went out into the garden while he contacted Starfleet; she had weeding to do, anyway, and she suspected that his superiors wouldn’t appreciate an anxious mother hovering over his shoulder while they issued orders. Especially since the communications earlier that morning had suggested that Jim shouldn’t, technically, have left San Francisco at all the day before.

Jim came outside a little while later and came over to where Winona was kneeling by one of her flowerbeds. Coincidentally, she was close to the corner of the garden where George’s tree stood. Jim reached out and touched the bark, looking at the tree as if appraising the last ten years’ growth and smiling.

“They want me back in California,” he said, his palm still flat against the tree. “Soon as possible. Apparently there was some kind of de-briefing, and I have to write a report …”

“Of course you do,” Winona replied, getting up from her knees and dusting them off. “If you’re going to get into trouble –”

“I don’t think I’ll be in trouble,” Jim assured her with an overconfident smirk. “I just saved the planet, I think they can cut me some slack.”

Winona summoned her best Unimpressed Parent expression and folded her arms. “There’s no need to get cocky, young man. You’re still a Starfleet officer –”

“I know, I know – I just got that speech from Admiral Spencer, thanks,” he grumbled, his smirk fading quickly. Winona laughed softly; Spencer was particularly formidable, she knew. However, if Starfleet were going to the trouble of having one of their Admirals officially recall Jim, he was probably needed urgently.

“When’s the next shuttle?” she asked after a moment.

“As soon as I get to the Riverside Shipyard,” he replied. Winona’s eyebrows shot up, coaxing a laugh from her son’s throat. “Yeah; I’m that important. Or that screwed, I’m not sure yet.”

Winona smiled, quietly hoping that it was a privilege and not a punishment, and took Jim’s arm to walk back to the house. “I’ll drive you out there as soon as Frank gets back. He had to run to the store this morning.”

“Frank could drive me,” Jim offered after a beat.

Winona felt something inside her chest clench and stopped short to look into Jim’s face. His expression was neutral: the offer appeared to be genuine, not made reluctantly or so that he could make Frank miserable. She swallowed hard.

“What?” he asked, frowning irritably, almost as if he guessed her thought process and didn’t like the way it made him look. “I just don’t want to put you out, if you’re busy. It’s not a big deal, Mom.”

Except that it was a big deal; Jim just didn’t want to make it into one. Perhaps seeing the end of those responsible for his father’s death had mellowed his feelings about Frank. Perhaps he had just grown up, and realised that hating a man who had done nothing wrong was not only illogical but pointless.

“OK,” she said, holding up her hands. It was enough, she thought, that he was willing to tolerate Frank and be civil with him; it didn’t matter what his motivation was. “I never said it was. We’ll all go, then. I want to wave you off.”

***

“Hey, Frank.”

It was Jim on the telescreen. Frank tried, but he couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his voice as he replied, “Hey, Jim. What’s up? You want me to get your mom?”

“Is she busy?” Jim asked, a little awkwardly. Frank suspected that he wanted to say ‘yes, please’ but didn’t want to sound rude.

“She’s just in the garden,” he said, smiling. It was enough of an improvement that Jim had called. “I’ll get her.”

“No, wait,” Jim said suddenly, holding up a hand as if he wanted to reach through the screen and catch Frank’s arm before he could move. He looked uncomfortable, but he met Frank’s gaze squarely through the screen. “It’s OK – she’s busy, I can tell you.”

Frank blinked at him. He had no problem listening to whatever Jim had to say, but he was surprised that Jim was willing to tell him rather than Winona. He saw Jim take a breath – possibly to ask him to get Winona after all, possibly to suggest he didn’t care enough to hear it – and cut him off before he could speak. “Well, if you’re sure, go ahead.”

“OK,” Jim replied after a moment’s hesitation. He paused to take a deep breath, then said in a rush, “Captain Pike’s being promoted to Admiral, and they need someone to take over his command of the _Enterprise_ – he put in a few good words for me, and … well, basically, I’m going to get my own ship.”

“That’s great!” Frank grinned. Winona had guessed that Starfleet would promote Pike and even suspected that they would give Jim a push up the ranks, but neither of them had even dreamed that Jim would have his own ship. “When’re they making it official?”

“Tuesday,” Jim replied. He too was grinning now, and Frank could tell that he was ecstatic at the prospect of commanding the ship. “There’s going to be a ceremony at the Academy.”

“I bet your mom will want to come and watch …”

“Yeah, well, they said I could have two seats in the audience, so …” Jim let his voice trail off, leaving the unasked question hanging in the air. When Frank stared at him and said nothing, he dropped his gaze and continued, “I just thought – you’d probably keep Mom company on the shuttle to San Francisco anyway, but … you don’t have to come.”

“No, I’d love to,” Frank replied softly. “That would be great.”

The syllables of ‘son’ hovered on the tip of his tongue for a moment before he could bite them back. It was a trick of speech picked up from his father, who had called everyone below his own age ‘son’ regardless of their actual relationship to him, and one he had learned not to use for fear of an explosive argument with one or both of Winona’s boys. Jim looked up at him, just as uncertain as Frank himself had been a moment ago, and Frank smiled, his almost-mistake forgotten.

“You know we’re both proud of you, Jim.”

“Yeah,” Jim muttered, embarrassed by the unexpected praise. Frank suddenly wanted to reach out and pat him on the shoulder; he felt as though, for once, the gesture wouldn’t be shrugged off or received with hostility.

“Anyway, I’d better not keep you,” Frank said after a moment of silence. “You’re probably rushed off your feet.”

“They are keeping us busy,” Jim admitted with a flash of a smile. “So, I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday?” Frank nodded. “OK then. Bye.”

“See you soon,” Frank said, and closed the connection, smiling.


End file.
